What accessories have you bought that you believe have really improved the sound of your system?

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matengawhat

Well-known member
Aug 17, 2007
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For example i bought granite plinths for my speakers, atacama atabites, brightstar isonodes. I did order some cardes caps but out of stock - can anyone suggest any other gadgets?
 
Blutak, It made a big difference when I used it under my speakers on my glass topped rack. I'd say the best performance per pound accessory I've ever purchased.
 
- Clearer Audio mains cables. Definitely improves the sound.
- Tesco / Morrisons £10 granite chopping board under the CD player. Doesn't work but its a talking point and its a spare for the kitchen.
- Toeing in speakers.Try it. And its free.
- Theakstons Old Peculiar and Rioja. Always makes things seem better.
What definitely doesn't work are over priced speaker cables and interconnects. Oh and badly engineered CD's like Do You Like Rock Music by British Sea Power don't sound good either.
 
Here what i thought of various improvements i made.

Soundstyle Z2 speaker stands - budget end for stands but taking the speakers off shelves onto stands is without doubt a must even with these budget end ones at £60. I fancy an upgrade to Parkington stands one day but am unsure it will improve things too much really.

Tacima CS929 Mains conditioner - yes it really did work opening the sound and clarity and another bargain upgrade at c£25. Recommended.

Silent Stage 6B Isolation platforms - for the cd and amp and yes it did work well and tightened the bass up. Bit of a luxury at £69 each but in black they look great too and much better than directly on my sideboard as i didnt need a rack.

Speaker cable - i had to go to quite expensive cable to push to a worthwhile improvement but the Chord Epic Twin was excellent although it was c£70 per metre. Previously i had the Chord Silverscreen and for the £6 per metre it was excellent. Bit of a luxury this one but a long term investment and my cable runs were short.

VDH 'Name' Interconnect - great value cable off ebay and after testing a whole range of interconnects up to c£200 i find this area one of the least effective upgrades once you pass the £40 retail mark. I saved my money on this for the speaker cable.

Clearer Audio mains cable - i want to try these but havent plucked up the courage to take a chance.
 
Well, if you want to try some really radical 'tweaks' or gadgets, you could give the Peter Belt website a look.

If you're not familiar with him, he has some interesting ideas about improving not your system, but the way you hear sound.

Certain hi-fi reviewers rated his stuff very highly some years ago, but not any more apparently.

I did try some of his suggestions, and a free sample of his 'foils', but couldn't notice any difference.

But I see there is some new stuff on his website since I last checked - I particularly like the idea of tying powercords and interconnects into reef knots, and aligning the slots in all the screws in your house!

emotion-5.gif
 
Loads of storage to allow me to rip my entire CD collection in lossless.
 
Another vote here for the Tacima CS929.

Insanely priced at around £25 (Amazon etc.) and made a noticable improvement when playing from the FM tuner and improved the picture quality from DVDs.
 
was thinking more about the slightly more unusual kind of stuff beyond cables and racks - have merlin mains blocks, merlin mains leads, chord chameleon interconnects equinox rack ect
 
heystak:- Clearer Audio mains cables. Definitely improves the sound.
- Tesco / Morrisons £10 granite chopping board under the CD player. Doesn't work but its a talking point and its a spare for the kitchen.

- Toeing in speakers.Try it. And its free.

- Theakstons Old Peculiar and Rioja. Always makes things seem better.

What definitely doesn't work are over priced speaker cables and interconnects.

Oh and badly engineered CD's like Do You Like Rock Music by British Sea Power don't sound good either.

ÿHow do you rate your odyssey speaker cable?ÿ
 
I think the Odyssey cable is fantastic - very open and transparent - great vocals - instrument seperations and a nice level of bass - i would highly recommend.
 
BT 500va Mains Conditioning Unit off EBay
Has to be (£40) the best cost effective improvement I have made in over 30 years!
Seeing that I already had a 'Mains Spur', Tacima CS929, Russ Andrews Classic Powerkords all plugged in I didn't think there would be more to come cleaning the mains any further.
Boy was I wrong, my system sounded really good before but deep base became more musical, even more background detail came out throughout all the range as well.

Can recommend all of the above mods, plus of course Blue Tack!
 
crusaderlord:Clearer Audio mains cable - i want to try these but havent plucked up the courage to take a chance.

No courage required, they have a 60 day money back guarantee. I can vouch for it as well, originally bought a Silverline cable but it was quickly obvious my system doesn't justify a cable of that expense. Kept it for 30 days or so just to make sure but decided it wasn't worth the money so sent it back and got a full refund (including the postage). Now have a Copperline Alpha which I'm very happy with.
 
gary_london:heystak:- Clearer Audio mains cables. Definitely improves the sound.
- Tesco / Morrisons £10 granite chopping board under the CD player. Doesn't work but its a talking point and its a spare for the kitchen.

- Toeing in speakers.Try it. And its free.

- Theakstons Old Peculiar and Rioja. Always makes things seem better.

What definitely doesn't work are over priced speaker cables and interconnects.

Oh and badly engineered CD's like Do You Like Rock Music by British Sea Power don't sound good either.

ÿHow do you rate your odyssey speaker cable?ÿ

The Odyssey cable is fine but I have not done any blind testing but did do a brief comparison with some bog standard "cheap" cable. Odyssey is definitely better but at £18 per metre it should.
The point I am making is as cables increase in cost the incremental improvement in sound (to me)is minimal
 
The granite chopping board that acted as an isolation board for my P3 was £10 well spent. Hard to think of anything else that beats it that wasn't an equipment upgrade.
 
Upgrading interconnect from Chord Crimson to Chord Chameleon Silver +, and speaker cable from QED Micro to Chord Rumour 2 has bought incredible dividends. My hi-fi has moved up a whole extra league in terms of its ability to completely involve me in the music. Fabulous.
 
In ascending order of price.

FREE Toilet paper (single sheet over bright tweeters a long time ago yielded massive improvement).

FREE Stacks of beer mats (Used as feet under surround power amps, more a cooling aid than sound upgrade).

NEARLY FREE Blu Tac (Between speaker and stand).

£2 Ferrite ring to reduce RFI on my pre amp.

£3 Adapters to run PC fans at 7V rather than 12V amd
£7-12 quieter PC fans. (Reduces noise floor in room when using PC as source).

£10 Cambridge Pacific then
£20 Atlantic Interconnects

£30 Arcam Black Box 50 and
£110 Beresford DACs (not quite accessories though).

£180 Speaker Stands (currently Partington Dreadnaughts).

£250 Velodyne SMS1 (Subwoofer control/EQ system (tightens up bass no end in right room/system).
 
Sound Organisation Turntable rack which screws to the wall keeping it isolated from all the vibration from my wooden floor.

simmel.
 
Acoustic Revive R-77, a weired device, but it certainly works.

Bass traps and room treatments all work well.
 
new russian millitary spec tubes £21.99 from ebay, this was a brill upgrade for my musical fidelity x-can v3 headphone amp and senheiser 650 headphones, the music became more open and specious i can now listen to my music for hours on end,,
 
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